IHH Terrorists Are Common Enemy of Chechnya and Israel

The Muslim country of Chechnya is looking to Israel for help in understanding how to fight a common enemy – IHH terrorists.

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Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, 13/06/10 14:20 | updated: 14:30

IHH anti-Israel rally in Turkey

Israel news photo: Kimdime/Wikimedia Commons

The Muslim country of Chechnya is looking to Israel for help in understanding how to fight a common enemy – Muslim terrorists, including those from the IHH, the Turkish group that funded the flotilla and whose terror activists attacked Israeli Navy commandos.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s recent visit to Israel ostensibly was for business or personal interests, but the Chechen leader “is a natural ally of Israel” because of jihadist elements, according to Dr. Dmitry Shlapentokh, associate professor of history at Indiana University South Bend.

Kadyrov disputes claims by Russia and other Chechen leaders that almost all of the country’s Muslim rebels have been eliminated. Dr. Shlapentokh wrote in the Asian Times that Kadryov’s ”unlikely” visit to Israel was a sign of continuing Muslim insurgency in the North Caucasus region neighboring Chechnya.

“Kadyrov, despite his dedication to Islam, is foremost a Chechen nationalist who sees the jihadis who emerged as a major force in 2007 in the Caucasus as his and his country's mortal enemy.” Shlapentokh wrote. “In this sense, he is a natural ally of Israel, [where] anti-Israeli forces are also the enemies of Kadyrov, as well as the Kremlin. It is this that has pushed Chechnya and Israel together, despite their reservations.”

Turkish police raided IHH headquarters in Istanbul several years ago and arrested senior leaders, including members who were destined to fight in Chechnya, as well as in Afghanistan and Bosnia.

IHH has provided money, weapons and fighters for Chechnya and Bosnia, according to Evan Kohlmann, an American-based private terrorism analyst who authored a 2006 report for the Danish Institute for International Studies that detailed IHH's past connections with the international Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.